ARCA tour part of statewide Manufacturing Day

ARCA Space Corporation CEO Dumitru Popescu, explains how the ARCAboard levitates and gave a description of how it was built, Friday October 21, 2016 during Manufacturing Day activities at ARCA's facility near the Las Cruces Airport.(Photo11: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)Buy Photo

LAS CRUCES - ARCA Space, a Las Cruces manufacturer of aerospace vehicles, will host public tours of its facility at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 24. Visitors will learn how components of the ArcaBoard, the Haas 2CA rocket, and the Demonstrator 3 are made.

ARCA is located at 10990 Bataan Memorial East in Las Cruces. Children age 5 and older are welcome if accompanied by an adult. Tours are free, but pre-registration is required. Register at bit.ly/2yEmDDY.

The tours are part of Manufacturing Day, a nationwide celebration that highlights the importance of manufacturing to the economy.

Bob Rogers,left and his son Chip, look at the Defiant, a drone capable of vertical take off and landings, with many applications for use depending on the payload that is attached to the unmanned vehicle. The Rogers were touring the ARCA Space facility as part of Manufacturing day. Friday October 21, 2016.(Photo11: Josh Bachman/Sun-News)

In New Mexico, more than 50 events are taking place in about a dozen communities. Gov. Susana Martinez and the Las Cruces City Council have proclaimed October as Manufacturing Month.

Many events are geared specifically to students in an effort to excite young people about engineering, design and production careers. This is a core goal of Manufacturing Day, as the need for skilled labor is expected to grow in the coming years.

According to a forecast by Deloitte Consulting and the American Manufacturing Institute, factories will need 2 million new workers in the next decade.

Statewide events are sponsored by New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a nonprofit organization that offers manufacturers training and expertise in efficient production and administrative practices that allow them to maximize their competitive edge.

This is the fifth year NM MEP has led the initiative. In 2016, twenty-eight companies participated in 51 events, eleven mayors and the governor issued proclamations, legislators and other decision makers joined the tours, and students got to see designs turned into products and products repurposed into other products.

All public events are free and can be found at newmexicomep.org/mfgday. The site links visitors to a corresponding Eventbrite page where they can register for a tour.